Astrum received 50% in another gaming asset

Astrum LLC, which is part of Multiplier Group JSC, which accumulates the former gaming assets of My.Games, received 50% in Entertainment Factory LLC. The latter was part of one of the oldest gaming companies in Russia Nikita.Online. The Entertainment Factory has its own Game.xp store and the rights to, for example, the multiplayer role-playing game Sphere. Kommersant’s sources suggest that Multiplier Group is expanding its assets in order to attract a strategic investor.

In the SPARK-Interfax database, Kommersant found that Astrum LLC (part of Multiplier Group JSC) in May received 50% in the developer and distributor of video games, Entertainment Factory LLC. The LLC was previously owned by Nikita Management, registered in the British Virgin Islands. The portfolio of the Entertainment Factory, which was a division of the oldest Russian gaming group Nikita.Online (founded in 1991), includes the Game.xp game store, as well as, for example, multiplayer role-playing games (MMO RPG) Sfera, Karos, Rappelz , mobile “Price of Freedom” and “Price of Freedom 2”, computer Parkan, Parkan 2, etc.

An interlocutor of Kommersant in one of the gaming holdings says that the Astrum company received the Entertainment Factory from My.Games (at the end of 2022 it announced its withdrawal from Russia) during the division of assets. This was confirmed by the general director of Astrum Sergey Efremov, when asked by Kommersant about the plans for the development of the asset, he replied that “for now, everything will remain unchanged.” Entertainment Factory did not respond to a request.

Now in the portfolio of JSC “Multiplicator Group”, in addition to “Astrum” and “Entertainment Factory”, there are developers of games “Pixonic”, “Imbakod”, “Smartfonio”, “N-Jinn”, as well as “Game Alliance” – a joint venture with a distributor games Innova, which owns the game store 4Game. In addition, Astrum is launching services that will potentially help it attract an audience to its sites: in May it became known that the company was preparing to launch AdvertDA, a streaming monetization service (see Kommersant dated May 25).

The Russian structures of Nikita.Online still have a list of products that can now be called “historical heritage” and restarted, Gadzhi Makhtiev, founder of the rawg.io portal believes: “Most likely, Astrum does not want to miss this opportunity. First of all, the company may be interested in “Sphere” – this MMO looks the most logical for further development. Also, Mr. Makhtiev adds that it is reasonable for Astrum to continue “buying everything that is left on the market in order to take the largest share.”

The interlocutor of Kommersant in one of the gaming holdings believes that now the task of Astrum, as well as its parent structure Multiplier Group, is to consolidate as many projects as possible, and then attract a strategic investor: “It could be AFK Sistema,” Rostelecom, Sberbank – there are not many options. A Kommersant source in a Russian-language game studio suggests that Astrum will continue to absorb projects on the Russian market, but will not invest in their development: “Most likely, Astrum will collect a portfolio of projects and then integrate into VK, transferring their audience to the gaming services of the company.

Nikita Korolev